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11.9.13

Green Fava Bean Toast ‒ Härkäpapupaahtoleipä tuoreista härkäpavuista

Today I got to taste fresh fava or horse beans for the first time in my life. They're one of those plants traditionally grown in Finland, which have almost been forgotten from the way of imported goodies, along with other such nutritious and tasty plants like hemp, turnip and buckwheat.

I do understand why restaurants don't want to use these fresh. Processing just a small patch like this meant several hours of work - and by work I mean the actual active time I did something with my hands, not just waiting while it cooks. But you never see these sold fresh either. This rare chance was all thanks to us planting and harvesting the beans ourselves in our small allotment garden.

So why is it such a hard work? Well, first you have to peel the beans out of their pods, then boil in water for 3-5 minutes and then individually pop them out of their skins as well before continuing to the actual cooking part. Of course, one way would also be to just serve them with greasy sauce and let the eaters peel the skins off. They're not related to new world beans in any way, so they're not poisonous to eat raw, just a bit unpleasant unless really young and small (in which case it's OK to use the pods as well). It's enough to cook them lightly so the aromas don't get waisted and the structure doesn't go mushy.

I wanted to try a rare treat like this really simply, so I used this recipe from a Swedish book Smakernas återkomst: när maten följer årstiderna (Ordfront förlag 2011) by a reporter Mats-Eric Nilsson. The instructions were a bit vague so I'll just tell how I did them.